Iron Mountain ski jump

Monday, September 5, 2016

GIVING THANKS FOR OUR LABOR DAY TOMATOES

CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter

When I was growing up,
Indiana produced more tomatoes than any other state except California. I don’t
know if that is true now, but I do know that when I picked tomatoes one summer,
because Mr. Thiemann, our neighbor, had leased his land to tomato growers, it
was the hardest job I ever had, and that is saying a lot, when you’ve also
spent a summer detasseling corn.

Detasseling corn was
miserable. We walked. The corn stalk heads were way above our sun-blasted
heads. We had to bend them down to grab the tassel and pull it out without
breaking the stalk. The corn leaves cut our arms and hands and faces. The humidity
in among those stalks was 100% and the temperature was in the 90s. We were
drenched in sweat. Our overseers were profane and mad that we did not work
harder. If we got behind, they left us in the field. There was never enough
water. We made fifty cents an hour.

With one proviso. If you
worked the entire season, from day one to day last, without ever missing, we
got an extra 25 cents per hour. That is a big bonus. I needed that money. Only one
other boy and I got that bonus. Others worked a day or two and found out how
miserable it was and dropped out. I learned I could stand almost anything if I had
to.

Even picking tomatoes. From
what I’ve said about detasseling, you’d think tomato picking would not be so
bad. No corn leaves to cut, or be down in among with 100% humidity, Mr.
Heathman’s well immediately accessible for water, bosses who were marginally
nicer than the corn masters. Tomatoes, though, grow down low. That kind of work
is correctly called “stoop labor.” At the end of a day, I couldn’t straighten
up. And I was only fifteen. Imagine what it was like for folks who were 45 or
65, and there were plenty of them.

So as you put a slice of
tomato on your Labor Day hamburger, or squirt some ketchup on, and your
neighbor talks about how immigrants just want an easy life at someone else’s
expense, think about the folks who picked your tomato, and say a word of
thanks.